Hispanic lawmakers sue Perry, state over redistricting

Published 5:30 am, Tuesday, April 5, 2011

BROWNSVILLE — A group of Hispanic lawmakers has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Perry and the state of Texas, seeking to halt redistricting activities based on what they say are flawed and discriminatory undercounts of Hispanics during the 2010 U.S. Census.

The lawsuit by the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, filed Tuesday in Hidalgo County, alleges census officials missed 4 percent to 8 percent of the population with their special door-to-door counts in low-income colonias, unincorporated shantytowns settled largely by illegal immigrants.

The suit would apply to decennial redistricting maps currently being drawn for the Legislature, Congress and the State Board of Education.

An accurate count would mean more state and federal representation for Hispanic border and urban areas, including Cameron and Starr counties, as well as areas of Dallas and Houston, MALC spokeswoman Christina Gomez said.

'We don't comment … '

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger confirmed the office had received the lawsuit and would be reviewing it with the state attorney general's office. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus also were named as defendants.

"As protocol we don't comment on pending litigation," she said.

"We have a duty to make sure that the numbers we received from census are complete and accurate," said Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of MALC. "We cannot allow flawed data to dilute the voting rights of the Texas Latino community."

250,000 undercount?

Rio Grande Valley officials last year balked at the census' "Update / Enumerate" strategy for colonias, saying it countered months of rallying the public to mail in forms.

Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia said the census tally of about 750,000 county residents was short by as many as 250,000 people, an undercount that could mean $300 million to $400 million in lost federal funding for education, health care and infrastructure.

Reached Tuesday, he said news of the MALC suit came as county officials concentrated on preparing their own litigation against the U.S. Census Bureau.

"It appears that we both are complaining about very similar conduct, and the basis of that, of course, is the undercount," he said. "We've got anywhere between 800 to 1,200 colonias, depending on how you define them. For some unknown reason the bureau of Census made a policy decision at the last minute to not mail out those forms to people who live in colonias."

Census spokeswoman Jenna Arnold has said errors would be found via the 2012 Census Coverage Measurement program and that communities could challenge results through the Count Question Resolution program.

Garcia said the county could not afford to wait. A court challenge to the 2000 census ended with the government agreeing to up the county's population by 38,000.